In one quiet corner of the city park, Jaehyun sat on a cold wooden bench. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his suit, and the paper cup of black coffee beside him had already lost its warmth. It had been a year since his house lost its sound. No more little footsteps in the morning. No more soft giggles when breakfast spilled. No more harmonized voices of his wife and son urging him to stop working and take a break. Since that night... that cursed night... when the meal from a new restaurant ended up stealing away the two people he loved most in this world.

Food poisoning. Two simple words. But Jaehyun was sick of how weak and ordinary those words sounded for something that had destroyed his life.

He had tried to stay sane. In meetings, behind expensive suits, in the fine dining restaurants where he met his clients, he still smiled. Still polite. Still looked like a successful man with a thriving business and a spacious home. But when night came and he opened his front door, the only thing that greeted him was silence. He wasn't looking for a new wife. Even when some of his female business partners began casually texting him, inviting him to dinner, slipping compliments into work discussions, Jaehyun responded only with cold, polite small talk. He didn't want to love just because he was lonely. He didn't want to simply replace the empty chairs at the dining table or the cold side of the bed. But he was growing tired.

Tired of ordering food every day, only to throw away the leftovers. Tired of his work shirts returning from the laundry with the same labels each week. Tired of cleaning a house by himself, like a stranger walking through a mausoleum he once called home. That was why he started considering.... not a new wife, but someone to help. Help keep the house from feeling like a grave. Maybe a housekeeper with a steady salary, or even one who could live in to keep the silence at bay.

That morning, as the wind gently brushed through and the sky remained gray, Jaehyun decided to walk to the park. Just to breathe air that didn't come from an office vent. And in the middle of a crowd that slowly gathered, his eyes landed on one particular sight... a modestly dressed young woman sitting on a thin mat with her little boy. They were sharing a single packet of food. The mother giggled quietly, feeding her son with her hands, wiping crumbs from his cheek now and then. And in that moment, Jaehyun didn’t see the woman first.

He only saw the little boy.

His movements. His laughter. The way he leaned into his mother. The way he ate like the world didn't exist. It broke something in Jaehyun. Tore at the wound he thought had begun to heal. His son's face flashed vividly in his mind. The whiny voice. The innocent stare. The small hands that used to reach for him the moment he walked in from work. For the first time in months, Jaehyun felt the urge to cry in public. But the tears didn't come. Only his chest tightened, and his breath became painfully heavy.

He didn't know the woman. He didn't know the child. But that one sight froze him. Made him feel hollow, exhausted, and... shattered.

**[ WELCOME TO AU NCT! JEONG JAEHYUN IS HERE! HAVE A GOOD TIME!<3 ]**